Need for Speed Underground 2

You want 40 hours of racing? EA delivers the most ambitious game in the series.

The streets aren't always dark and wet now either (though the patented dark wet streets are back). The weather changes. Sometimes right in the middle of a race, you'll hear thunder and then it starts pouring, which affects your handling. When you drive beneath underpasses, you'll see the rain coming down in only those patches open to the sky. There are no people on the streets, but trees sway in the background and cars independently drive by, crash, stall and mill about the city. When you pull off donuts, clouds of smoke billow up behind you. On the whole, EA's done an excellent job with the visuals on the PC and Xbox versions, and to a certain extent, it's done as best it could on the PS2. Too bad about the Cube version.

On the downside, there are several minor quibbles. The car models aren't that detailed. I'm not sure what the polygon count for each car is, but this game won't win best car model awards anytime soon. I could easily do without the cutscene crashes -- they just get in the way -- and the graphic novel segues feel contrived and like an excuse for not having anything else. How many times can we see the same painted image of Brooke Burke? I guess a freakin' lot.

Sound As with the previous Underground, this year's model offers a cacophony of impactful sound effects. Each car has its distinct gear revs, disinct idles, depth to its engine sounds, and distinct tire-burning screeches. The gear switches sound thick and real. The crashes sound like real metal twisting and windows shattering. And all of the little menu sounds, of ignition, keys turning, gears clicking -- create a great feeling of power and car satisfaction.

Brooke Burke's voice acting is state of the art Brooke Burke -- she's a no-nonsense car chick who knows she's hot. She likes to talk about slamming, jamming and peeling, so someone's going to like her work. As for the rest of the cast, I've now come to expect the sound of "cool" dudes that use the most "hip" lingo around. I guess people talk like that, right? Yo! Know what I'm saying dawg? Ugh...

Customize the holy crap out of your car.

The soundtrack is a collection of 27 songs, compiled on EA's Trax. They can be customized so you can hear them in the menus, when racing, not at all, or at any time. You can hear them in sequential or random order. I personally hadn't heard 90% of the songs, and the tunes like Snapcase's "Skeptic," Skindred's "Nobody" and SpiderBait's "Black Betty" got the "off" switch from me. I don't know, is this what the kids are listening to now? I mean, even Snoop Dogg's Doors remix of "Riders on the Storm (Fredwreck Remix)" was pretty damn bad. And it's not like I haven't heard that song a million times already.

While NFSU2 contains some aspects of its predecessor, several major changes make it a significantly different game. The world is massive and open, filled with many more courses that before. The progression scheme is complex and you'll find yourself winning to earn money so you can spend it on modding the heck out of your car over and over again. The cars are more weighty and a little more realistic too, requiring more skill from the driver.

The sad part is that the huge city is actually too huge for its own good. You'll grow bored driving around the mostly empty streets, and once you collect the small quantity of Info letters, find the few shortcuts, and open up the garages, there's not much left. The Outrun races ARE fun, but some of them can last up to 15 minutes, and if you want to progress, you're simply going to have to wait.

In all, NFSU2 is an impressive, and more importantly, fun game that overcomes its faults with depth, breadth, and variety.